


Kodama

by abrae



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Magical Realism, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-04
Updated: 2014-04-04
Packaged: 2018-01-18 02:57:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1412410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abrae/pseuds/abrae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson hugs a tree.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kodama

**Author's Note:**

> Shinysherlock prompted: "A Sherlock character meets Totoro," and this is what happened.

If anyone were to ask, John would say it’s exertion that’s put a bright blush on his face, and certainly the clammy sweat dotting his brow would seem to prove it. Though the air is cool, there’s a warmth in the spring mist rising from the soil that compels him to remove his old khaki jacket. He lays it on a dry rock, then looks around again. Once he’s satisfied that the coast is clear, John clears his throat, spreads his arms, and… hugs the tree.

Unsurprisingly, it feels like a tree. The bark is jagged and worn, patches stripped away where the animals have been at it, the wood beneath scarred and vulnerable. John makes a mental note of the position of his left hand - just barely touching the edge of an odd, fiddle-shaped hollow - then moves that hand to replace his right as he shifts to the side. He steps close, hugs the tree again as the website has said; but this time, it’s almost as if the tree — as if a  _thrum_ , sonorous in the still of the forest, is coming from the tree itself. A sharp, soft intake of breath, a panicked instant of fight or flight, then John gingerly lays his cheek to the bark and, after a moment, closes his eyes. This close, the thrum courses through him. His leg, his heart and groin - parts of him that have been all but dead since his return thrill at the sensation.

A soft laugh, almost a sob, escapes John’s lips, and he turns to lean his forehead against the bark, hiding sudden tears that no one is there to see.  _Ridiculous_ , he thinks. The civilian-softened pads of his fingers grip rough bark and still the tears come, streaming down his face, and he doesn’t know why, and the tree —

John gasps. He pulls back, nearly stumbling over a bony, jutting root in his haste. He fists a hand in his jumper, then clambers back, pressing his palm to a smooth patch of wood near the ground. It’s… warm,  _alive_  in a way John hasn’t been in so long, too much; so he turns and leans up against the tree, bound in a reverberation that seems to begin in the earth, coursing through John’s veins like blood.

-+-+-+-+-

When he startles awake, the sun has emerged from behind the clouds, low in the late afternoon sky. John rubs his eyes, then twists to lay his hand on the tree once more. It’s still and cold, and a fleeting thought -  _dream I must’ve been dreaming_  - provokes a breathy chuckle. He climbs to his feet, grimacing at the dampness that’s sunk clear to his pants, then brushes himself off.

Might as well finish, he thinks, again spreading his arms to embrace the thick tree trunk. He marks his place to the right once more, then moves to make his next measurement; but when he rounds the trunk he finds himself face to face with a man. A  _naked_  man, looking for all the world like he’s just emerged, fully formed, from the earth itself. John draws up and drops his hand from the tree, losing his place, and the two stand staring at one another in unmasked astonishment.

"Er," John croaks, then clears his throat with a pointed crane of his neck. "I — where —" He frowns, then meets the other man’s ( _unreal_ ,  _iridescent_ ) eyes and asks, “Who  _are_  you?”

The man - hair bark-brown and kinked like the branches above - blinks. 

"I… " he begins, eyes scanning the landscape, the tree, John. "I… don’t know."

John gives a disbelieving laugh. “You don’t  _know_? How is that even — you must have come from somewhere.” He smiles - the mirthless one that Harry hates - and this seems to pull an innocent, answering smile from the man before him. He reaches out; without thinking, John pulls back, and the man’s smile falls. He straightens, tall and immovable, his expressive features freezing in wooden blankness, and something in John’s chest twists painfully at the sight.

"No," John says softly. "I’m sorry. I didn’t — don’t… don’t."

He holds out a hand - one that’s hurt and healed by turns, and after a moment, the other man takes it. The skin under John’s fingers is smooth, warm; it  _thrums_ , and John raises startled eyes to the man before him, who smiles and says, low, “You.”

**Author's Note:**

> This really did start out as a story with a Totoro character. My favorite part of Totoro is the bit where they raise the tree, because the tree reminds me of a tree - a grove of trees, really, in the small town I used to live in years ago.
> 
> So I was looking up Japanese tree mythology, and I remembered through the magical help of Google that kodama are tree spirits, and according to Wikipedia, there’s apparently a story about one kodama who fell in love and became human in order to be with the person they loved, and… this is what happened.
> 
> The tree-hugging thing comes from the National Parks website, which asks people to help record the size of ancient trees in the UK by hugging them in order to measure their circumference. So, John’s just doing a little tree-hugging here.


End file.
